I was going through some old newspaper clips the other day and found a long feature piece I wrote in 1990 about a man who I have come to regard as one of the great Americans of the 20th century.

His name was George Henry Seldes, a fiery, muckraking newsman and Vermonter who covered some of the greatest stories of his time.

Seldes, who wrote more than 20 books and worked well into his 90s, lived and wrote in Hartland. He died at the age of 105. Seldes was more than a newsman. Seldes was a free thinker and a true believer in the Constitution and a tireless fighter — in his many works — for the civil liberties of all Americans.

In a wide-ranging interview in 1990 for a story celebrating his 100th birthday, Seldes made a bold prediction, one that caught my eye as I reread the piece.

Seldes said he feared that American soldiers would ultimately fight and die in the Middle East.

"For now, I think it's (war) been postponed. I'm afraid, though, the situation will keep boiling and we'll have a war there," he said.

Seldes had an incredible career as a newsman, mostly as a foreign correspondent with the Chicago Tribune.

He interviewed Lenin in Russia during an anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, covered the Spanish Civil War with Hemingway and was red-baited and brought before the McCarthy hearings.

Hemingway, Seldes said, was one of the first reporters to write about how, in Spain, "Germany was preparing for the coming (second) world war. And nobody paid attention to him."

Seldes was in Germany and Italy in the 1930s when fascism was nothing but an idea. In the 1990 feature, I wrote: "And he (Seldes) saw how that idea, bolstered by lies, deception and thugs who made themselves rulers, altered the face of Europe."

Seldes, who interviewed Mussolini, the murderous fascist who came to power in Italy before World War II, was something of an authority on fascism.

But no other event of the 20th century had as great an impact on the old muckraker than did the Spanish Civil War. The world, including the American press, Seldes said, "ganged up on Spain." The fascists eventually won there.

If he were alive today, it would be fascinating to get George Seldes's take on the Bush administration. I can tell you this: Seldes could always smell a rat, and he would have despised what Bush and his thugs have done to the Constitution of the United States in the name of "national security."

He might have even gone so far as to describe Bush as a fascist.

By invading a weak nation without provocation, this government, in fact, duplicated the bullying tactics of the notorious fascists and Nazis of the 1930s and '40s.

This long war in Iraq has done far more than cost this nation in blood and treasure.

It has made our country weaker, militarily, and has helped to create a new generation of terrorists who see us as a ruthless nation that uses force as an instrument of foreign policy.

This war has allowed a corrupt administration to tilt this country in the direction of fascism not seen in my lifetime.

Here's what Bush and his henchmen have done to help disembowel our Constitution:

Warrentless wiretapping.

Discarding the Geneva Convention, which concerns the treatment of captured soldiers.

The illegal prison at Guantanamo Bay, where prisoners are held indefinitely without the right of habeas corpus.

The use of telecommunications companies to spy on Americans.

Cooking up evidence to justify the invasion of Iraq.

And what of the things we have yet to learn?

God bless this country if we are ever the victims of a truly horrific terrorist attack. In addition to the consequences of such an attack, we could very well find our civil liberties further threatened.

Government policies and officials of the kind that Bush brought us will do anything they can to "protect us," even if it means stripping us of our liberties. Fascism could be only a series of devastating attacks away, for Americans and their liberties.

I think that is what Robert Jordan, the central character in Hemingway's great novel about the Spanish Civil War, was referring to when he was asked by a fellow rebel fighter (in the above quote) about how many fascists there were in America.

If we can be so lost as to elect a man who repeatedly violates the highest laws of our land in order to run up his agenda and to allow him to launch an unjust war that continues to this day, can we really be that far away from the fascism that Robert Jordan so frighteningly foresaw?

Dennis Jensen is the outdoor writer for the Herald. Contact him at dennis.jensen@rutlandherald.com

Latest Comments

rebellb
I think Charles Manson and the Manson "Family" were a fascist conspiracy to make the hippies look bad. I suspect Manson himself was programmed. He had been in various prisons, where a lot of brainwashing occurs. While he likely learned mind control techniques there, he was also subjected to them. The film industry is involved in a lot of propaganda to get people to go along with the system. The Spahn Ranch was likely used in many of the Westerns that glorified the genocide of the Native Americans and programmed the minds of many people. Many people who got caught up in the Manson cult were vulnerable and naive people who were looking to escape the authoritarianism of their bourgeois families, but instead got taken in by this brainwashed brainwasher who pretended to be a hippie. The Spahn Ranch likely contained a lot of triggers that might have been used in programming the members of the Manson "Family".

Lyle Courtsal
This guy is not a Christian if he is sending vulnerable people to a stateless person status. A lot of rightwingers who think they're Christians ain't going to make. Remember, thou shalt not kill, by gun or budget cut.

Hank
Oh and further evidence of his being an agent provocateur is quoting an anti-pope of the new Vatican II pseudo-Christianity. It's pretty clear after the Judaeo-Masonic takeover of the Catholic Church with Vatican II that this fully controlled religious entity is being made to be the One World Religion of ecumenism, do as thou wilt and other satanic creeds. SHAME ON CONSTANTINE. I only need use the words of Archangel Michael: Lord rebuke you, alex constantine.

Lyle Courtsal
And I forgot about Luke Elliott Sommer and friends who exposed 65 torture centers mostly in Afghanistan. He came home and exposed them, then he and his associates did a bank job for running money. What most people don't understand is that once you violate a clearance, then they start gunning for you. They ran to Canada and then turned themselves in. Then of course there was the talk about how Sommer was going to use the money to start in the canadian ganja businessl weird how it was that when I posted additional information on wikipedia, it would vanish off the site in about a second. Type it in again and once again, the good stuff on the torture centers would vanish, but the garbage about the canadian pot business would still be there. Weird. . .